THE GLOW BOYS
Finding love in Christmas lights
Muscular dystrophy hasn’t prevented Aaron Collins from sharing a blaze of Christmas light with his neighbourhood.
Wearing a ventilator breathing mask since he was 17, the 28-yearold man from Palmerston North explores his passion for festive lights online, from his bed and his motorised wheelchair.
He then imports the lights he fancies from the United States so he can compose and sequence an annual Christmas lighting event in the yard of his family’s Terrace End home.
‘‘It’s about the true meaning of Christmas. I like doing it for other people,’’ Collins said.
‘‘This was three months to design. I like my computers. I don’t get up very much.’’
‘‘He spends hours on the computer programming it all. It’s quite complicated. He sorts it all out in his head,’’ grandmother Barbara Collins said.
‘‘The brains are good, but the body’s not. I don’t know what they would do without computers.’’
She was referring to Aaron’s younger brother Nathan, 26, who is also in a motorised chair with the degenerative condition. Both are missing a muscle-building protein called dystrophin from their makeup.
‘‘He can’t actually put up any lights himself, so it’s a real team effort to get it done,’’ Nathan Collins said.
‘‘These lights are his passion and I thought it would be nice for him to get a bit of recognition for it.
‘‘He can make any pattern you like, and it is all synchronised with the arch [in the driveway], the spotlight, the wall-wash, the Japanese maple tree spotlight and the ones inside the garage.’’
There are more than 100 sets of lights and thousands of bulbs. Mum Anela Collins said the backyard teepee-shaped light-tree Aaron added to the display this year alone had 600 lights.
Installing them all took her and others seven weeks.
‘‘I get help. I don’t like heights I don’t do ladders,’’ Anela said.
The display was lauded by a new neighbour, Centrepoint Theatre’s Kate Louise Elliot, who had just moved in across the street. She sent the family a thankyou note praising the ‘‘fantastic effort’’.
‘‘I really appreciated what they had done - that was before I knew about the muscular dystrophy. Now I appreciate it even more,’’ Elliot said.
Aaron Collins has entered the Professionals annual Christmas Lights Spectacular for the past four years ‘‘so people know where to come’’.
The display of 21 houses in Palmerston North and Feilding goes live on December 1.